Individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) often have difficulties in perceiving speech in noisy environments. The present study investigated whether this might be explained by deficient auditory stream segregation ability, that is, by a more basic difficulty in separating simultaneous sound sources from each other. To this end, auditory event-related brain potentials were recorded from a group of school-aged children with AS and a group of age-matched controls using a paradigm specifically developed for studying stream segregation. Differences in the amplitudes of ERP components were found between groups only in the stream segregation conditions and not for simple feature discrimination. The results indicated that children with AS have difficulties in segregating concurrent sound streams, which ultimately may contribute to the difficulties in speech-in-noise perception.
Current diagnostic taxonomies (ICD-10, DSM-IV) emphasize normal acquisition of language in Asperger syndrome (AS). Although many linguistic sub-skills may be fairly normal in AS there are also contradictory findings. There are only few studies examining language skills of children with AS in detail. The aim of this study was to study language performance in children with AS and their age, sex and IQ matched controls. Children with AS had significantly lower scores in the subtest of Comprehension of Instructions. Results showed that although many linguistic skills may develop normally, comprehension of language may be affected in children with AS. The results suggest that receptive language processes should be studied in detail in children with AS.
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